Happy 20th Hubble!

Today is the Hubble Space Telescope's 20th anniversary in orbit. The Hubble Space Telescope has over its lifetime provided many discoveries and produced thousands of awe-inspiring images of deep space, and our local neighborhood in space. To celebrate, NASA has released a new image. The image is a small portion of the Carina Nebula, a large star-birth region in the Milky Way Galaxy, and depicts a pillar of gas and dust (3 light years tall!) rising among jets of gas.

Image: NASA

I'm also celebrating by including some of my favorite images from the Hubble below the fold.

I really like the structure and shapes of M104 and M64, and love the detail that the Hubble brings out. I can almost picture galaxies turning...

The Majestic Sombrero Galaxy (M104)
Image: NASA

Nucleus of Black Eye Galaxy (M64)
Image: NASA

I also like the shapes of the following galaxies, especially the Whirlpool Galaxy's.

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and Companion Galaxy
Image: NASA

Grand Design Spiral Galaxy (M81)
Image: NASA

The Gas Pillars in the Eagle Nebula almost parallel the image just released of the pillars in Carina Nebula.

Gas Pillars in the Eagle Nebule (M16)
Image: NASA

The detail in Hubble's image of the Orion Nebula is just stunning. The view in my binoculars is nothing compared to this...

Orion Nebula (M42)
Image: NASA

I really like this picture of a supernova near NGC 4526. Compare its brightness with the rest of the galaxy's (the supernova is the bright dot in the bottom left corner).

Supernova 1994D in NGC 4526
Image: NASA

And this image may seem familiar... (it's a picture of an aurora on the planet Saturn!)

Saturn Aurora
Image: NASA

All of these images can be found on HubbleSite.

Edit: Google also has a Google Doodle honoring this anniversary:

Image: Google